Paulus knows the name of the game

Greg Paulus, making the transition from Duke basketball reserve to starting quarterback at Syracuse, admits that he has struggled with one aspect of the switch: remembering teammates’ names.

Paulus has gone from having to memorize the names of 12 Blue Devils to 75 Orange men.

“It has taken a little bit longer to learn those guys’ names and learn all about them,” Paulus told fanhouse.com. “But it has been fun. We have a great bunch of guys here and they’ve been great and nothing but supportive of me.”

Here’s a tip for Paulus: You might want to commit to memory every last nugget of starting left tackle Tucker Baumbach’s bio. Otherwise Baumbach might be all too happy to acquaint Paulus with the defensive ends of the Big East Conference.

Trivia time

Besides Paulus, who was the other former Gatorade national high school football player of the year who has not played football collegiately?

Equal justice?

While the NCAA investigation into alleged improprieties committed by former USC stars Reggie Bush and O.J. Mayo drags on, the organization was quick to drop the hammer on the powerhouse men’s basketball program at Southeast Missouri State.

The Redhawks agreed to recruiting restrictions, a reduction in scholarships and had to forfeit all their victories from 2006 to 2008 for these “infractions”:

* Coaches observed out-of-season pick-up games.

* An assistant coach gave a player a ride part of the way home so that he could fly to another city to witness the birth of his child.

* Another player received a whopping $239 to cover unpaid institutional fees.

Just when we were starting to wonder about the NCAA, it’s nice to know such heinous acts won’t be tolerated.

Marketing maneuvers

Alan Mintz says he regrets renaming his team the Orange County Flyers after purchasing the Fullerton Flyers from the Golden Baseball League in 2007.

The owner of the independent league team said he figured that it made more sense to market to millions of potential fans in the region than to merely the 130,000 or so residents of Fullerton.

But Mintz has watched his strategy backfire.

The team still rarely draws any fans from south Orange County, he said, and the name change irked some of its loyal followers from Fullerton.

There was one good thing about the switch: no lawsuit from the city of Fullerton.

Trivia answer

Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer.

And finally

The St. Louis Rams are among the teams allowing fans to text message security concerns to a command post within the Edward Jones Dome so they can summon help without having to miss a play. Rumor has it the Dodgers were contemplating a text messaging system to distract fans every time Jason Schmidt took the mound.

--

ben.bolch@latimes.com